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Kagan in the Wheelhouse

Did Barack Obama settle for the safe choice with Elena Kagan? Hendrik Hertzberg wrote earlier this week that, were it not for the threat of a filibuster, “the President would feel free to make a truly ‘balancing’ appointment”—to counter the conservatives on the court with “a luminous and learned liberal” like Laurence Tribe.

But on this week’s Political Scene podcast, Jeffrey Toobin takes issue with that argument. In discussion with Ryan Lizza and host Dorothy Wickenden, Toobin says it wasn’t just Kagan’s chance at an easy confirmation that appealed to Obama. The President sees himself in her:

I think Obama is not some sort of judicial liberal who wanted to pick a Thurgood Marshall, a William Brennan, and has settled for Elena Kagan…. I think Elena Kagan is very much in Obama’s political wheelhouse, they are in synch politically…. This is who he wants on the court because this is the kind of liberal he is, which is not much of one.

Whether a motivating factor or not, Kagan’s confirmation process is not likely to bring much drama. “Barring some bombshell revelation, she’s going to be on the court,” Lizza says. But there is one part of the hearings he and Wickenden are looking forward to: another chance to watch Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, in action. “That’s usually the high point of this exercise in theatre,” Wickenden says.